Creating an appStart here
On the My Apps page, workspace admins and builders see a New App tile. The first step asks one question — How would you like to create your app? — with two choices side by side:
- Use a Specification Workbook — press Browse File to pick an Excel workbook (
.xlsx) from your computer, or drag and drop it anywhere on the card. Only.xlsxcan be read; if your file is an older.xls, open it in Excel and use File → Save As → Excel Workbook (.xlsx) first. If Google integration is enabled, Create from Google Sheet takes one from your Drive instead (see Google Sheets). - Create with AI — describe the app in plain language and Sheetward drafts the specification workbook for you to review (see Draft with AI).
Starting one path dims the other, so there is never any doubt about which you are on — cancel the AI panel to go back to the workbook card. The sheet-naming guide sits below both, because it applies either way.
Before the app is created, Sheetward checks your workbook and shows what it found. If something would stop it from building a working app — no Form_ sheet, a blank form, no readable fields, or more than one header / line-items section in a form — it explains the problem (in red) and asks you to fix the spreadsheet and upload again. Everything else arrives as one of two advisory lists. Worth checking holds the parts Sheetward had to make a judgement about — a block it read as label-and-value pairs, a data type it didn't recognize, two labels that produce the same internal name: these are in your app, so look at them before you rely on it. Left out of the app holds the parts it couldn't use at all — a lookup, rule or formula it couldn't read, a sheet it didn't recognize — and the app is created without them.
Each sheet in the workbook also gets a card: its name, what Sheetward read it as, and how many rows it holds. The card previews only the first few rows — select the row count to open that sheet as Sheetward read it, with your workbook's own row numbers and column letters, so you can check what it saw against what you wrote. Very long or very wide sheets open up to a limit, and the view says how much it left out.
The Configure Your App step is where you name the app and set two things that apply to everyone who uses it. App languages comes first — the additional languages this app offers, chosen from those your workspace has enabled — and Form design (the record-form look and field layout) sits below it. Selecting a language does not translate anything: it decides which languages the app offers, and you maintain the wording yourself in the App Specification workbook — the Translation_ sheet and the language columns in your List_ sheets. App languages is left out when English is the only language your workspace has enabled.
On the Configure Your App step, use Preview App to try the forms before anything is created: the preview is the real form — fill in fields, pick from dropdowns, add line rows — rendered with your chosen Form style and layout. Nothing you enter is saved. Close the preview, adjust the style or layout if you like, and preview again before pressing Create App.
To update an existing app later, use the Change (↻) icon on its card. The dialog works through numbered sections: 1 App details (name and description), 2 App languages, 3 Form design, and 4 Workbook, which is optional. Edit the first sections and save; open section 4 only when you want to replace the specification the app was built from. Sections you can't use are left out — App languages is missing if your workspace only has English — and the numbering closes up, so it always reads 1, 2, 3 in order.
Section 4 offers three sources, as cards: Pick an updated Excel workbook — press Browse File, or drag and drop your workbook straight onto the card — Pick from Google Sheet, and Revise with AI. Only one can be in play at a time: starting one dims the others, and backing out brings them back.